Chapter 11
Goutte d’Or
Paris
Mac Dekker had one phone call yet to make. A call he couldn’t miss.
“Is this my little sweetheart?”
“Hello, Papa,” said Katya Dekker, his four-year-old granddaughter. “It snowed today.”
“Did it?”
“The backyard looks like a giant duvet.”
“A duvet? My, that must be something.”
“Fritz loves it. He didn’t want to come inside, even for his dinner.”
Fritz was their Bernese mountain dog. They’d brought him into the family soon after Katya arrived, hoping that he would help her cope with her parents’ deaths.
“How is Martin?” asked Mac.
“He made me fir-fir for breakfast.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s the porridge he ate when he was little. It has goat’s milk.”
Martin was a young man with whom he’d worked the past two summers on the alp.
He was an Eritrean refugee who’d come to Switzerland as a boy.
He’d earned a university degree in agriculture and taken a job managing a dairy high on the hills above Zinal.
Good people. Mac had asked if Katya might stay with his family while he and Ava visited Paris.
“Did you like it?” he asked.
“I prefer an omelet.”
“That’s very grown up of you,” said Mac.
“Why aren’t you FaceTiming?” asked Katya.
“My phone isn’t working right now.”
“Where’s Ava?”
“She’s in the other room,” said Mac.
“Papa, are you sure she can’t hear us?” asked Katya, whispering.
“Positive, angel. What is it?”
“Did you ask her yet?”
“Ask her?”
“Yes. You know,” said Katya. “If she wants to be my mommy?”
“How do you know about that?”
“You told Martin that it was a special trip,” Katya continued, and he could imagine her holding the phone with both hands close to her face. “You said that you had something important to ask.”
“Did I?”
“I saw the ring,” she continued breathlessly. “You were keeping it in the bathroom next to the floss. I’m not stupid, you know?”
“On the contrary,” said Mac. “Right now, we have to keep this our secret. When I ask, you’ll be the first to find out.”
“She promised to bring me back a doll,” said Katya. “Mommies only bring back those for their daughters.”
“How do you know that?” asked Mac.
“Because that’s what my mommy always brought me when she’d been away.”
Mac smiled, if only to hold back his emotions. “Katya, I have to go now.”
“Are you off for a lovely dinner?”
“Yes,” said Mac, in awe as usual over her vivid and far-too-mature imagination. “And we will raise a toast to you.”
“Don’t worry,” said Katya. “I know she’ll say yes.”
“Are you sure?”
“Ava doesn’t have another daughter,” said Katya. “She needs me.”